Somali Islamists' No. 2 Leader Surrenders in Kenyan Capital

Published: January 23, 2007

The second in command of Somalia's defeated Islamist forces has surrendered to the Kenyan authorities and is staying at a hotel in Nairobi, Western diplomats and Somali officials said Monday.

Sheik Sharif Ahmed, the head of the Islamic Courts Union executive council, was part of a group of Islamist leaders being hunted down by American and Ethiopian troops in southern Somalia. Described as a moderate Muslim and potential peacemaker, he surfaced at the Kenya-Somalia border in the past week, Somali officials said, and now the Kenyan immigration authorities are deliberating about what to do with him.

''Sheik Sharif is in Nairobi,'' said Abdirahman Dinari, spokesman for Somalia's transitional government. ''We are waiting for the next move.''

Several Western diplomats said American officials, who have urged Somalia's newly empowered government to reconcile with moderate Islamist leaders, were instrumental in arranging Mr. Ahmed's safe passage to Kenya.

''He decided to come to Kenya only after getting a guarantee from the Americans that he would not be deported'' back to Somalia, said a Western diplomat in Nairobi who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''He's been here a week.''

Over the weekend, the BBC broadcast an interview with Michael E. Ranneberger, the American ambassador to Kenya, in which Mr. Ranneberger said, ''We certainly have made clear to the T.F.G.,'' Somalia's transitional federal government, ''that it needs to talk to all elements, and that includes people such as, for example, Sheik Sharif.''

At that point, Mr. Ahmed, a school-teacher turned religious leader, was still widely believed to be hiding in the marshes of southern Somalia or possibly dead.

On Monday, an American Embassy official denied that the United States played any role in bringing him to Kenya. ''We're not holding or interrogating or protecting him,'' she said on condition of anonymity. ''We're not involved in this operation in any way.''

Kenyan officials did not return calls for comment.

European diplomats in Kenya said American officials were playing an increasingly large behind-the-scenes role in Somalia, pursuing an aggressive counterterrorism agenda but also trying to shape Somalia's political future.

Several Somali leaders seemed to welcome that involvement, saying that Italy, the other Western power in Somalia, had discredited itself by trying to establish a rapport with the Islamists before they were defeated.

Last month, the Islamists attacked Somalia's transitional government, which was based in Baidoa. What they did not expect was a crushing response from Somalia's neighbor Ethiopia, which sided with the transitional government because Ethiopian officials viewed the Islamists as a regional threat.

It took all of one week for the Ethiopian-led forces, with approval from American officials, to rout the Islamist army and install the transitional government in Mogadishu, Somalia's bullet-pocked capital by the sea.

Mogadishu is now loosely controlled by a mix of Ethiopian troops and government soldiers, who are struggling to pacify a population that is armed to the teeth. On Monday, residents said a gun battle between Ethiopian troops and masked men in a crowded livestock market killed seven people, four of them insurgents and three civilians.

Western diplomats said Mr. Ahmed, 42, could be enormously helpful in defusing the violence because he has a devoted following among former Islamist fighters, who are suspected of being the backbone of Somalia's growing insurgency.

United Nations officials said Mr. Ahmed could be granted political asylum in Kenya or another country in the region, possibly Yemen, so that he can meet with Somalia's new leaders on neutral soil and map out a path forward.

Abdirizak Adam Hassan, chief of staff for the transitional president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, said that if the Islamic leader renounced violence, he would be welcome back in Somalia. ''We're not after his blood,'' he said.

The case is a little different, though, for Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, the Islamists' top leader. Mr. Aweys is nowhere to be found, and most Somalis believe that he will never turn himself in because American and Ethiopian officials have accused him of being a terrorist.

Photos: Ethiopian troops patrolled Mogadishu yesterday, where they battled masked men in a crowded livestock market, killing seven people. (Photo by Abukar Albadri/European Pressphoto Agency); Sheik Sharif Ahmed, who surfaced at the Kenyan border within the past week, shown in June. (Photo by Evelyn Hockstein for The New York Times)